With the advancement of a government-wide digital strategy that puts a premium on mobile computing, telecommuting could become a reality for a greater share of federal workers, though agency CIOs face a stout set of challenges before the federal government becomes home to a truly mobile workforce.

Here at a conference hosted by the Mobile Work Exchange, a group that champions the adoption of technology and policies to enable remote work, experts from within the government and leading contractors described the challenges and opportunities of overhauling an IT infrastructure to mobilize the workforce.

Federal Employees Must Buy-In

"I've basically been charged with changing the culture of FEMA," Schreiber says.